The crimes behind unearthed Victorian police mugshots

Committing the pettiest of crimes in Victorian England could lead to harsh punishment.

And criminals who found themselves in the cells in the police station at Chester Town Hall were often on the receiving end of the era's particularly tough justice.

Social enterprise Big Heritage has been researching the conditions in the Northgate Street cells ahead of starting to run tours of the site later this month.

They discovered a number of police mugshots which shed light on the type of offences the criminals of Chester were committing, and the penalties they received.

Widow Elizabeth Handley, who lived in Upper Northgate Street in Chester, and her daughter Martha, 20, were among those who ended up on the wrong side of the Victorian criminal justice system.

The 42-year-old and her daughter ended up in the cells of a police station on the ground floor of Chester Town Hall in 1870 after being caught stealing a spirit level valued at three shillings from a builder and trying to pawn it.

They were sentenced to 14 days in prison with hard labour.

James Preston, an unemployed and homeless army deserter whose age is unknown, was also a previous inhabitant of the cells.

He had just been released from the prison at Chester Castle after serving a sentence for destroying workhouse clothing when he was caught stealing clothing in 1870.

Preston had been forcibly tattooed with a D for desertion, which was commonplace in the Victorian era but was "quite unusual" at this time.

He was sent back to prison for three months.

Richard Norcott was 27 when he was brought into the cells in 1872 for stealing two bottles of whiskey from Chester Railway Station.

Alison Atkin, from Big Heritage, said: "It appears to have been a spontaneous crime of opportunity. They got drunk and were quickly discovered."

He and two friends were arrested in February of that year and convicted and jailed for six months at the Quarter Sessions in the court house in Chester Town Hall in the April.

The court only met four times a year and dealt with more serious offences, and Norcott's offence was deemed more serious because railway bosses wanted people to feel safe on the network.

Atkin said the main form of hard labour used in prisons and workhouses was rock-breaking.

Another form of punishment was picking oakum, which involved unravelling old tar-covered ropes.

Women could also be sent to work in laundry houses or factories or to do textile work as a punishment.

The nine cells would have been cold and dank, with no lighting and only a ventilation system to heat the whole of the building, Atkin added.

Occupants had the barest of facilities including a wooden bed frame and a straw mattress.

Prisoners would have had a chamber pot in their cell or could ask police if they could use the prisoners' lavatory, with separate facilities for men and women not introduced until renovations were carried out in 1933.

One of the cells was used for sick prisoners or those who were under the influence of alcohol.

"As for food, until 1898 prisoners were given only bread and water, but if they wanted other food, it could be brought to them by family or friends," said Atkin.

"They also had the option of buying food and hot coffee from the police officers."

Atkin said that, after 1898, Cheshire County Constabulary introduced a standardised diet for prisoners, including items such as bread, water, tea and coffee, soup, potatoes, and, if someone was remanded long enough, meat and cheese.

She said it was "really exciting" to be able to offer tours of the former police station as it had not typically been open to the public before.

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